I awoke this morning thinking about my dad. That isn't so strange considering that today is Fathers Day. Like many Fathers Days before, I feel an ache when I think of my dad. I have quietly uttered the words "I wish I had have had more time with you dad" many many times over the past 28 years that Dad has been gone.

There is another ache that i feel when thinking of Dad as well. I don't feel like I knew my dad very well. I am the youngest by 6, 8, and 10 years, and while my needs were met, and I know I was loved, there was a part of me that felt overlooked. Dad didn't have time, or didn’t make time with me when I was a young boy. I am not sure if I would have been able to do any better than him considering some of the circumstances that he had to navigate as a young man...the Great Depression, WWII, the loss of his left leg in a construction accident a few years before I was born, financial hardship, Prostate Cancer, etc. He certainly had his share of challenges.

To compound the situation, I was not an easy child...just ask my siblings. Of course they would tell you that I was spoiled, but pay no attention to that:). Much of my childhood could be characterized by loneliness and insecurity. My siblings were close together in age, and far enough ahead of me in age that we were not close. My parents both worked and we lived in a very small town in Central New York. Out of my deep need to be seen, invited, and noticed, I was susceptible to anyone, or anything that would validate me.

I was twelve the first time I was asked if I wanted to get high. I was scared, but I was also desperate to be invited, and to fit in somewhere. That one decision would drastically change the course of my life. I know, that sounds too dramatic...I wish it was. At the same time I was finding drugs and alcohol to numb my pain and fit in, my parents and siblings were finding hope in Jesus Christ. As I look back on that time through the fog nearly five decades, I am struck with how frightened my parents must have been as they watched me drift further, and further away. It would be nine years before I would get to a low enough point in my life where I would reach out to Jesus. It was July 3, 1978 and I had been on a drug and alcohol binge for over three years...I was pretty messed up. After nine years of literally flipping my dad off, and inflicting as much pain on he and mom as I could during my rebellion...it was my parents that flung the door open and welcomed me home that day…right after Jesus did.

Within three weeks I would be stepping off of a plane in Columbia, SC to spend the next year living with my oldest sister and her family. Have you ever stepped off of a plane in SC in July? I can still feel the heat hitting my body like a Linebacker.

I spent five of the next six years in SC, apart from holidays and my first year of marriage. In 1984 Patty and I moved back to NY with our 5 month old son Matthew. Oh how I loved being with my family...I had missed so much over those years of rebellion. Dad was bigger than life. He was a very generous man...my wife thought my parents were rich when we first met because dad was always handing cash to who ever needed help. My dad was a very funny man...he had a new joke everyday, and he had the gift of WOO...winning people over. He loved Jesus and his family passionately.

Over the next 4-5 years I felt like I was able to make up for many lost years between me and dad. We attended the same church, worked on projects together, and played a lot of golf together, laughed and cried together. (The picture on the left is when dad baptized me). One regret looking back is that while we spent all of that time together, we never really talked about our hearts, dad's story, or my childhood, and the many ways that he had missed my heart as a young boy. To be honest, neither one of us really had a language or an understanding of the importance of that kind of conversation.

Over the past 14 years as I have been on an incredible journey of recovering my heart, I have had to go back into many of those father wounds, and the impact that they had on me throughout my life. It has been painful and in the beginning there was anger toward dad for those things. However, I needed to go back and do that deep heart work so that I could get the healing and freedom that God wanted to give to me. There is a beautiful transformation that has taken place...I have been able to forgive my dad and can sit here this morning and have a deep love and appreciation for the man that my dad was. Not just a nostalgic feeling, but a deep and true love.

In 1989 dad died unexpectedly from complications that arose after open heart surgery. Of course we were all in shock when we received the news that dad was gone. I had just seen him the night before and he and I talked about getting out to play golf as soon and he got back on his feet.

Dad was only 69...he was taken from us way too soon. So as I remember my dad on this Fathers Day, I am filled with gratitude and love for him. I miss him and look forward to seeing him again. I love you dad.